There are a number of threads suggesting changes to BLOPs BBs. They all get met with criticisms about being too OP, or not being enough, or just generally getting trolled.

So, this thread is to establish whether or not the BLOPs BB’s Private Johnson is sufficient or not. This thread is not about what can be done to fix it. The first step in having a problem is admitting the problem. If you have a suggestion for HOW to fix them, post it somewhere else.

Since all threads are met with criticism (and rightfully so, scrutiny is important) I am going to leave it to those who would say that the BBs are fine to say WHY they are fine.

BB Pros:

Marginally better tank (at a cost of being very easy to apply dps to)

Marginally better dps

T3C Pros:

Close enough DPS that it probably won’t make or break a fight to have that little bit extra

A much smaller sig, giving them comparable tank

A fraction of the price

Substantially greater options for escape, evade, and exfil

Much faster locking times, allowing for a more rapid gank

To argue against the first 2 pros listed:

Any “better tank” they might have is moot. They die the moment they get into a real fight, if they don’t gtfo.

T3C DPS is sufficient to gank targets. The marginally better DPS will probably not make or break a gank.

In solo and micro fleet (3-4 people) situations you just can’t spare a blops for bridging T3Cs or bombers. Other than that there is no reason to take a blops to a drop, instead of bridging T3Cs, bombers and stratioses.

Yes, you can jump to a cyno. But a T3C can be bridged by a BB to that same cyno at a fraction of the risk. As the 2+ billion isk elephant in the room, you’re better off left at home. Being able to jump to a cyno is only useful if you’re spider tanking PVE escalations in this case (the only time you’d risk your ship is when you know it isn’t at risk).

Right, you do lose SP. I would imagine you could probably fit a T3C and buy an injector for less than the cost of a BB though.

“Stronger” ewar is moot; I could bridge in 2 falcons for 1/8th the cost of a widow, which would have many times greater jamming capability, along with the usual GTFO that a force recon has at its disposal. That of course requires two pilots, but often times we have zero issue with people volunteering to fly recons over bombers.

In solo and micro fleet (3-4 people) situations you just can’t spare a blops for bridging T3Cs or bombers. Other than that there is no reason to take a blops to a drop, instead of bridging T3Cs, bombers and stratioses.

A fair point. In microfleets, I agree, unless someone has a blops BB alt (or a T3C/bomber alt, etc) that person’s contribution will be very important to the drop. That is presently their only usage is micro and small gang stuff. After that, bomber and T3C blobs are prevalent.

I would argue however that blops should (and really could) be a very interesting and balanced dynamic not just in small and micro gangs, but also in large gangs and possibly even in 200+ strategic ops. If it were “fixed” in such a way to make them viable (exactly what change is of course out of scope for this thread).

Idea I have seen being suggestion by other:
Covert Cloak
D-scan Immunity
T2 Resistance
Recon bonused EWAR
Ability to Jump to Sun

The actual fixes are out of scope for this thread. Lots of possibilities. I have suggested a number of them in the past, each getting shot down with the standard “blops BBs are fine, they’re balanced” argument. So I’m going to preemptively shoot that argument down with a thread that very plainly focuses ONLY on whether there is a problem… not potential solutions, their strengths, drawbacks, likes, and dislikes.

Once it can be acknowledged that blops needs a fix, the argument that they’re fine can stop happening and constructive discussion on specific fixes can happen.

I would argue however that blops should (and really could) be a very interesting and balanced dynamic not just in small and micro gangs, but also in large gangs and possibly even in 200+ strategic ops. If it were “fixed” in such a way to make them viable

They are viable. The majority of people simply being too ■■■■ to use them isn’t a justification to buff them.

There are enough F1 monkey ships available. We don’t need Black Ops to join that list.

Really? So, you would take a fleet of black ops battleships into the ring with a fleet of Machs (or given that those are more expensive now, Tempests)?

If so, I’d love to see your corp’s isk efficiency.

They’re only useful for hit and run at the moment, anything you can’t blap with overwhelming force will annihilate you. What’s more, they’ll do it for a fraction of the isk. Big fleet battles are never hit and run. They’re toe to toe attrition battles until one side loses critical mass.

I have suggested several options that would add challenging and interesting gameplay to them - both completely feasible in concept, both not making blops BBs another F1 ship of the line. As mentioned though, those are out of scope for this thread.

Really? So, you would take a fleet of black ops battleships into the ring with a fleet of Machs (or given that those are more expensive now, Tempests)?

Thats not really a fair comparison. Might as well say that a Hyperion or Marauders are rubbish since neither work well in large fleet fights. Could say the same about any mainline DPS fleet vs a full fleet of support ships.

BBs have a different roll and offer features that a standard BS does not.

That is their intended gameplay. They aren’t meant to be mainline ships for big fleet battles.

No, I didn’t intend for them to be. But if you jump in for some hit-and-run operations a la bombing run style, you’ll trade ships 1:1 and that’s not exactly efficient.

Linus_Gorp:

If the pilot skill is missing, yeah. A skilled blops gang can deal with an even or superior enemy force.

And a skilled enemy force will cause you to take losses, at a severely higher cost to yourselves than to them. Player skill goes two ways. Just because you are skilled does not mean their FC isn’t skilled. A doctrine PVP fleet with a good FC will make short work of an even similarly sized blops gang.

Linus_Gorp:

They also don’t have a jump drive.

So the argument goes, and yet, these ships are routinely jumped into fleet combat. Wait… no they aren’t… they get jumped onto solo ratters, and blapped if it’s bait or if a response fleet arrives in time.

Linus_Gorp:

And there is your real problem. If you’d just get over the fact that killboards are meaningless, you could start having fun again instead of worrying about how your killboard looks.

I never said killboard. I said isk efficiency. You and I are debating large fleet op viability, which are generally strategic in nature. If you kill 20 of their ships and they lose 10B isk, they kill 20 of your ships and you lose 40B isk, you’ve failed to achieve a sustainable level of success. In order to win a fight you need to achieve both the objective as well as do it sustainably otherwise you deplete your ability to fight and they’ll simply win through attrition. Whelping 50 titans for example to save an astra would NEVER be viewed as a win, if we wanted to go full hyperbole on the subject.

What is it now? Why discuss large fleet op viability when you yourself said you don’t intend them to be viable for that?

I don’t intend for them to be THE fleet that sits there and trades shots with another fleet.

I intend for them to be INVOLVED in a large fight. Hit and run attacks, “suddenly battleships” after your mainline fleet and their fleet have locked horns, stuff like that. Basically the wrench that can get thrown into the enemy FC’s plans.

As it stands now, if you try to get involved, they’re just going to say “oooooh… shiny… new primary is the Redeemer! /broadcast”. Then you get to watch your multi-billion isk battleships get turned into fireworks.

I intend for them to be INVOLVED in a large fight. Hit and run attacks, “suddenly battleships” after your mainline fleet and their fleet have locked horns, stuff like that. Basically the wrench that can get thrown into the enemy FC’s plans.

As it stands now, if you try to get involved, they’re just going to say “oooooh… shiny… new primary is the Redeemer! /broadcast”. Then you get to watch your multi-billion isk battleships get turned into fireworks.

You should know that that’s not how EVE combat works.
To achieve that goal CCP would have to either
a) revamp the entire combat system or
b) make blops ridiculously overpowered

That is certainly a wrench that can be used. However, bomber fleets can’t be used to hold a position.

Imagine there’s a big fight going down. You’ve used the red phone to call in friendly assistance. They’ve used the red phone to call in friendly assistance. You know who their friends are, they know who your friends are. Thanks to the magic of spies, they know that your friends are burning a HAC fleet over to help out.

So they set up a gate camp to block your reinforcements.

THIS right here is the PERFECT place for a blops BB fleet to get thrown into the mix of a large scale fight. Your friends scout the camp, see that it’s not a fight they can win, and say “hey, we can’t reach you. We need a little bit of drain cleaner.”

So, you fly a cyno to the system from a different gate, jump in 30 BBs 50km off the gate and light up the camp. The HAC fleet jumps in and lights them up too. Net result, “we knew they had 50 HACs… we were’t planning on 30 battleships and 50 HACs”.

Or, the inverse. Your spies, intel, whatever, tells you they’re burning 50 HACs in. You set up a camp, but there’s like 4 routes they could take to get there. Sure you could camp the last gate, but then it’s easy for the enemy to divert and assist. If you want to interdict, you need to be further out to prevent reinforcements.

So you set up 10 man camps on each gate. Soon as you have hostile gate fire, you jump in those same battleships 50 off the gate and they light things up from afar whilst your camp deals with tackle.

INVOLVED in the fight, but not a mainline ship. Neither of these scenarios are even remotely possible if the enemy FC has any brains at all, presently.

You’ve got two alpha fleets fighting each other. They’re winning, and you’ve nearly lost the critical mass you need to volley their ships. Dics are dropping bubbles, which means you’re about to lose most if not all of your battleships.

But you see that they’re hurting too. Just a little bump is all you need to turn things around, or at least force them to withdraw. You can’t jump capitals in because it’s either: A) too far away or B) carriers are not a good choice or C) they’re already deployed somewhere.

Imagine jumping in 30 more battleships. With renewed critical mass, you get back into the fray, potentially saving your objective. Yes you’ll take losses, but if you save the rest of the fleet, perhaps those losses are within efficiency standards. This is almost possible now, but it’s simply far too expensive to justify unless you’re about to lose a baby titan or something.

Or another possibility.

Goons are deployed. They’ve left behind a bunch of carebears who can’t or won’t pvp. So far their whole strategy has been brute isk - they’ll just throw 50 of everything, lose 49 of them, and let that last one stick. It works well with a big warchest and a substantial amount of income from home operations.

Until you jump in battleships, and make a sustained operation of it. Current blops drops of this nature must be hit-and-run; if they bring a response, you bring the GTFO. Now with the bulk of their fleet away, their response fleet is smaller… with a bit of love, the Blops BBs could hold the grid, forcing their financing activities to stop. Their move at that point.

The problem is that if you want them to “Hold the Line” then they ahve to be as good if not better than the ships they are facing or have superior numbers (not really easy given Fuel use ect) .

In your first couple of scenarios , jumping in some Caps would work better and if its 50 v 50 + 30 BBs and both have logi then the BBs would help with the day as they currently are. BBs are not that bad and if combined with normal T2 logi (from the 50 Man Hac Gang) they could hold their own.

Yes, you can jump to a cyno. But a T3C can be bridged by a BB to that same cyno at a fraction of the risk. As the 2+ billion isk elephant in the room, you’re better off left at home. Being able to jump to a cyno is only useful if you’re spider tanking PVE escalations in this case (the only time you’d risk your ship is when you know it isn’t at risk).

Can we buff titans since most of the time, they happen to be 100 billions elephant in the room better left at home after bridging a fleet or is this argument complete BS?

The problem is that if you want them to “Hold the Line” then they ahve to be as good if not better than the ships they are facing or have superior numbers (not really easy given Fuel use ect) .

They are T2 ships, one would expect tech 2 to be superior to T1. Instead they’re inferior “because they have a jump drive”. The key thing I need to reiterate is that I believe they NEED (and should need) support.

A group of 20 battleships with logistics and some recons at their optimal range SHOULD be able to beat 50 HACs. I know this is counter to the expectation that bigger is not better, but think about it and you’ll see that it’s not because they’re battleships.

They dictate the engagement range based on where they cyno in. If they’re brawling fit, they cyno in at brawling range on the gate. If they’re sniper fit, they bridge in 50-100 off. The recons help control the grid depending on the engagement profile which allows them to apply all of their strengths.

Now, here’s where I’ll say that if the enemy had come with battleships, the BLOPS BBs would get their asses handed to them. Or frigates, most would just be able to crash gate. That’s counterplay, and I’m okay with that.

Andrew_Indy:

BBs would help with the day as they currently are

All FCs everywhere:

Primary the battleships, they’re worth just as much as our capital ships and we can delete them in about 5 seconds each.

The BBs lack the tank to do more than die to capitals. With a better tank absolutely they could. As it stands, they’d get murdered. The only time BBs can take on capitals is when they vastly outnumber them and can defang them quickly. A pair of HAW dreads would wipe out 20 BBs and support without even batting an eye.

Andrew_Indy:

and if combined with normal T2 logi

Yes, that works if you’ve already got T2 Logi on the grid. For BLOPs though, you can’t “suddenly T2 logi”. Maybe T3 logi, but they suffer from crappy reps and being quite expensive themselves. Then you have to worry about whether or not the T2 Logi can even reach the BBs… they melt quickly. At 50km off, reps will be pretty terrible when compared against the incoming dps.

Frostys_Virpio:

Can we buff titans since most of the time, they happen to be 100 billions elephant in the room better left at home after bridging a fleet or is this argument complete BS?

A titan doesn’t get deleted under focus fire. Even from an entire capital fleet. You in fact don’t even bother trying to shoot titans until you’ve cleared up the FAXes. Even then, they can soak up a lot of DDs.

A blops BB will get deleted regardless of support unless they bring major logistics. I mention ISK for the singular purpose of the fact that it will inherently draw enemy fire.

Think about it. If you were an FC, you had a bunch of 4b isk (and 1 million EHP) capitals to shoot at, as well as some 2b isk (and 140k EHP) blops BBs to shoot at, what are you going to shoot first? Yea, you’ll shoot the stuff that is made out of paper first.